Oh God, the Future of Virtual Reality Looks Creepy as Hell

OK, so Oculus Rift? Awesome. Virtual reality treadmill? Dope. Gun controllers? Well duh; you've played Duck Hunt. Put them all together and you should get something unbelievably amazing, right? Right?!

It seems like the answer should be a resounding yes, but somehow after seeing this video, I'm not sure. Taken at San Diego Comic Con, the video above shows some (random?) guy, playing Team Fortress 2 with all of the virtual reality perks possible. It's not the first time we've seen this setup, but something about this clip in particular betrays the real creepiness of the result. Maybe it's because the focus is on the guy instead of the game this time around? I'm not sure; all I know is that it makes me uncomfortable.

No doubt, the experience from the inside is awesome. But just watch this dude for a second, and really drink in how completely unsettling and disturbing his movement looks. It's like a nightmare mashup of a junkie on a bad drug trip, some weird alien insect creature, and a malfunctioning humanoid death robot that's sitting at the very lowest point of the uncanny valley. Even describing it gives me the willies.

We geeks have been hankering for a holodeck for forever, and with rigs like this, we're getting close to the first iteration, albeit with no actual holograms involved. Maybe actual holograms could make it better somehow, but for now, it looks like the cost of virtual reality is not only looking like an idiot, but looking like a creepy, vaguely inhuman idiot.